Tshwarelo Hunter Mogakane
Pretoria - A Mpumalanga agency mandated with funding businesses has cautioned that the rampant cases of cable theft in South Africa might result in compromised food security.
Chairperson of the board of the Mpumalanga Economic Growth Agency, Thabo Motau, told the Pretoria News that if cable theft was not urgently attended to, farmers were likely to end up working for nothing.
He said while the global economy was already not at its best due to various issues, including the effects of the pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war, cable theft was a phenomenon the country could do without.
“From an economic point of view, cable theft is quite a challenging phenomenon that various businesses are dealing with, from small scale to medium and big industries.
“For example, Mpumalanga is a predominantly agricultural and mining province. If you look at it from an agricultural point of view, farmers are affected by cable theft because their irrigation systems and storage facilities rely on electricity. The profit margins in farming are not that huge, so in this situation, farmers will end up working for next to nothing,” said Motau.
Motau said the organisation was tasked with empowering various businesses with start-up capital and sustainability systems.
He, however, said there were no funds to help farmers replace stolen cables.
“In the bigger scheme of things, this affects the output that the farmers would have been contributing in terms of food security.
“That is one of the biggest challenges you are dealing with in the agricultural space, but cable theft is beyond agriculture.
“Mining operations are suffering. Just one mine in Gauteng can be affected and fail to produce one product that ultimately affects the entire country.
“The processing plants and wash plants are interrupted. It normally takes days to replace a stolen cable, which affects production costs.
“You cannot tell employees that because there’s no electricity, you are not going to be paid. Some companies eventually fail to carry the costs,” Motau said.
Every week, police report on suspects arrested in connection with cable theft.
Twitter users have decried the arrests, stating that they were useless because some of the suspects were too well-off to be kept in jail.
“They’ll get R2 000 bail and be allowed to continue their business. Neither the courts nor politicians are serious about protecting us as a country,” wrote @DocHassim, among hundreds of comments on a cable theft post this weekend.
Joburg City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said Midrand was plunged into darkness when a mini-substation was stolen even before it was installed.
“We recorded at least five incidents of theft and vandalism overnight on Thursday. This includes the theft of a new mini-substation worth about R600 000 in Midrand. The mini substation was installed on Monday last week in Klipfonteinview near Rabie Ridge to help alleviate outages caused by overloading in the area and was waiting to be commissioned when it was stolen,” said Mangena.
Mangena added that six people were arrested in connection with separate incidents last week.
“City Power welcomes the arrest of two scrapyard owners in Roodepoort for being in possession of stolen cables. The two are part of the six suspects who were arrested yesterday in separate incidents by City Power security and the SAPS’ Essential Infrastructure Task Team as we intensify the war on cable theft.
“The raid by the SAPS on Horn Scrap metals dealer in Roodepoort came after a tip-off about copper cables at the (company’s) premises,” said Mangena.
Mangena said City Power technical experts were called to the scene where they positively identified the infrastructure that included copper cables and busbars often stolen from vandalised mini-substations.
Pretoria News